


Graphite

by kore_rising



Series: Shades of Gray [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-28
Updated: 2010-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:00:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kore_rising/pseuds/kore_rising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lace garters and dark sheer silk stockings (or fishnets). Arthur's always been a leg man, likes touching that bit of skin that peeks out between the stocking and the lace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Graphite

**Author's Note:**

> **Rating:** NC-17/M  
>  **Pairing:** Arthur/Ariadne  
>  **Notes/Warnings:** Written for [this](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/756.html?thread=1809396#t1809396) prompt ([the fill is here](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/3765.html?thread=7652277#t7652277)) at [](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/profile)[**inception_kink**](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/) : lace garters and dark sheer silk stockings (or fishnets). Arthur's always been a leg man, likes touching that bit of skin that peeks out between the stocking and the lace.
> 
> This story now has both a prequel: [Standing Male, Nude](http://kore-rising.livejournal.com/6946.html), and a yin sequel: [Anthracite](http://kore-rising.livejournal.com/10375.html), but you don't need to read either to understand this.
> 
> The characters, setting and story of _Inception_ are the property of Christopher Nolan and no cash is being made from this story.  
>  I also owe a huge debt of thanks to [](http://saourise.livejournal.com/profile)[**saourise**](http://saourise.livejournal.com/) who made the quite frankly gorgeous graphic which accompanies this fic. Please, go and tell her how bloody amazing she is.  
> 

At the risk of sounding like one Thomas Leonard Eames, a woman's body is like an amusement park. And doubtless if I were the aforementioned Thomas etc., I would be the kind of person who ran through the gates straight to the roller coaster, perhaps stopping off to flirt with the Ferris wheel by telling it it's lights looked pretty or some kind of crap like that so I could pick it's pocket, then use the money I found there to go on the roller coaster over and over until I fell off, was violently sick or got bored. And the Ferris wheel would still forgive me afterwards because I'd got blue eyes and am so fucking charming.

But I digress.

The point I'm fumbling for is this; women are beautiful. A rich wonderland of delights all tied up in a soft, satin smooth bow. From the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes, there isn't a woman alive who cannot captivate someone when she chooses to. From your great grandmother down to your infant daughter, women have got such a hold over men that you should rule the world. I think you chose not too because you've got your eyes set on the universe and can't be bothered to sweat the small stuff. And I'm not just talking about sex. The number of times I've seen a male mark wrapped around the little finger of a woman, be it his mother, his wife or his secretary because he needs her  that much, it's a wonder anyone pays for extraction. They should just ask the nearest woman to the guy and save themselves the risk of getting caught messing around with people like us. And when sex, when _love_ , is involved you may as well just let the man go quietly. Put the woman who can captivate him down next to him and you could take his clothes, his fillings and probably his left kidney before he noticed you'd done it.

As a rule, I play my cards pretty close to my chest. So close that they're practically inside my shirt, in fact. I'm not flamboyant like Eames or emotive like Dom so most people are hard pressed to read me, but trust me when I tell you this, I can be captivated like anyone else. Just because I don't rip off a pretty phrase or smile like that doesn't mean I'm not capable of becoming speechless with awe, lust or admiration. Just because I don't wolf whistle or wave my hands around like I'm miming Barbie walking by doesn't mean I'm not taken with form or beauty when I see it.

I suppose I should confess at this point that I have my own favourite amusement park ride, to borrow the analogy back from the Eames' edition of _Men are from Mars and Women Like Chicken Soup_.  My own personal captivation point, if you will. I have a weakness for women's legs. The leg leads a soft, shapely path up to the Eames' roller coaster that just begs to be lingered over. You have not lived, in my opinion, until you have felt the warm slipperiness of fine silk thread against your cheek and your fingertips as they meander slowly up it. Or, even better, the spine tingling jolt of finding that the fabric suddenly gives way to a margin of skin that is just begging to be touched, licked or kissed. If you add this to someone who already turns my head it's only a matter of time before I'm the one running through the gates like a child on his first trip to Disneyland, delirious and just as captivated as the next person.

So I come to Ariadne.

~*~

What makes me a good point man is having the kind of mind that goes from A to C via B, taking in the fact D might show up with a gun and try to blow A's brains out. So let me be direct. Ariadne is far too clever for her own good, prone to asking the wrong kind of questions at the precisely the wrong moment and ignoring direct commands if she thinks she knows better. But she makes up for it by being talented, brilliant at her work and smart enough to have learned the game we're in quicker than almost everyone else I've ever met. She is also gorgeous. Pretty in that fresh way that promises a deepening loveliness as she grows into herself. It's hard to hide that, even if she used to dress like she fell through Urban Outfitters via Top Shop and a sale at La Redoute. And I noticed it, I kept noticing it, all the way through the Fischer job, through her teaching me the city and the hotel until I could walk them as well as she did, through her mind scattergunning Freud, Hofstader, Escher, Kafka, Johnson and Rogers in a sleet of ideas and taming them to her will.

I worked with her mind but I saw her body, stealing tiny sips of her as she walked by or lay dreaming. I gave more of my private time than I will ever admit to imagining her beautiful form bent across my bed, my desk or the front seat of my car. Thinking of her legs locked around my waist or braced over my shoulders while she ordered or pleaded with me to give her what she needed. Her perfect lips forming a rose pink O around my straining cock. My tongue tasting her while her hands fisted in my hair. The stream of dirty talk she could utter in that clipped voice. Or, joy of joys, her naked save for a pair of inky black stockings, hands on her hips and a smile that would be my downfall. I don't think I took a shower that entire period without finding myself braced against the cold tile wall, masturbating myself into an incoherent, babbling mess.

What I didn't do was let it stop me being the point man, the solutions guy, the one who comes prepared for the worst even while aiming for the best. I didn't let myself give in to it and start acting like Cyrano de Bergerac and Romeo's bastard boy child because there was no time or space for it. You can't be caught in a gun fight making cow eyes at the cute girl because that is the shortest route to getting a bullet through your forehead. When we shared a smile at Cobb's compliment, when I took her arms and forced her to slow down and breathe, even that stolen peck of a kiss, those were the offerings I made myself to keep it under control. Once Fischer was done, however...but that's something for another time. Suffice to say, my showers stopped being a haven of self abuse and for weeks Ariadne wore a grin so huge that even Eames couldn't bring himself to needle her.

We made a deal straight off: no business mixed with pleasure. When we worked, we worked and when we played I could sometimes barely walk in a straight line. Oh sure, there are places when the line blurs. I'll bring her coffee and she'll rub the tight spot between my shoulders when I sit up from hunching over my desk. And sometimes there's a rose by her drafting table when she comes in from lunch or I find a note tucked in my breast pocket. What of it? I'm not dead from the neck down, I'm just blessed with a fine sense of the appropriate. Fucking her on my desk during a briefing is a great idea- if I want to get a reputation for being a flake, an exhibitionist or in need of a white coat. So usually I remain the man the world of extraction has come to know, the linear thinker with the solutions in my right pocket and my gun in my left. The rest of my life is none of their business and I'm happy to keep it that way.  
Note that the key word here is _usually_.

~*~

The client's name was Gershardt. And this may be the only time I will ever say this, but I barely remember meeting him for the first time. I know I don't remember learning what he wanted extracted until twenty four hours later and for the life of me, I have no idea why he engaged us after the utter shambles I made of our pitch.

Despite what many may think about the world where extractors do business, we don't lurk in the shadows of dingy drinking dens, sidling up to prospective clients and muttering "Are you looking for someone like me?" Well, Eames might but I doubt he's looking for a job when he does things like that. Given who we work for, what we do and who we work on we tend, as rule, to adopt the dress code of the well heeled business person. It has the advantages of letting us hide in plain sight and lending extraction a vital veneer of respectability. After all, if Cobb, Yusuf, Eames or I lurched up to you in a pair of oil stained overalls, a day's growth of beard and slurred "I can get into your enemies' dreams! Or give you the best dreams you ever had! Just let me put this line of unspecified chemicals into your median antibrachial vein..." You would run away so fast the world would blur. And no corporate head, except maybe those with tastes that veer that way, would ever come within a hundred feet of us. So rule one of the extractor's wardrobe is to be suited and booted, particularly when the client or the mark is present. Even Yusuf can manage to look like he's aiming for smart casual when the occasion calls for it. 

The second detail of our operations it's worth noting is that it's quite rare for a client to meet the entire team. Saito was an exception, a good exception, but an exception none the less. Quite often the extractor is the one who meets the client and makes the deal, briefs the team and gets the operation completed. When Dom and I worked together before Fischer we were _the_ tag team, Dom with his persuasion and me with my perfectionism, talking up clients like a pair of hustlers. And now there's more of us to draw from? Well, we cut the face to fit just like everything else. Some clients appreciate Eames' confidence (it's that damn Ferris wheel thing again) or Yusuf's expertise. And sometimes the fact that Ariadne is female as well as smart doesn't hurt, be the reason reassuring a woman client that extraction is not just a testosterone fuelled pissing contest or letting a CEO know that even in our world _pretty_ is not a euphemism for _flimsy_.

It was three months after Fischer the very first time Ariadne and I went in to pitch to a client. We had concluded in the research that she and I would go down better than any other combination since the person in question was not only a construction magnate but a crazy Francophile. (He also wrote haiku as a hobby and collected the work of Francis Bacon -which apparently was where I came in, or as Eames put it: "If all else fails you can bore each other senseless talking about the figurative versus the abstract.")

Having proved that we could keep our business selves in place, my only qualm was what Ariadne was going to wear. Yes, I know how that sounds. Let me tell you, my favourite thing that I'd seen Ariadne wear up to that point? A smile. Or failing that one of my shirts and a smile. All that being true, Mango meets Fcuk was not going to cut it. And so I went to her, colleague to colleague, and brought this up. I may have used the term _suiting_ and mentioned the grey ensemble from Fischer's hotel dream. I may have implied she should wear her hair up and perhaps grace her feet with shoes rather than boots. To which she nodded, said she understood and would find something. I did not at any point expect what I actually got.

We arrived separately at Gershardt's suite. Due to some ridiculous, screwball comedy era mix up,  I had ended up with someone else's keys and had to traipse back to the warehouse to return them because they held the only key to the genius in question's door. And since the genius in question had called me at 6am and I refused to run around town like a rat on a wheel, I decided to dress for the meeting, sort out the key problem and then meet Ariadne at the hotel. So I left her warm and mussed, clutching a cup of coffee and kissing me sleepily goodbye. The next time I saw her? Shit.

I had arrived admirably early, in spite of the key debacle, ordered mineral water and turned the Point Man up to full volume. It was going wonderfully well; I was chatting him up with a little spiel about how quick and effective extraction can be; Gershardt was eating out of my hand and I was warming up for a mention of Francis Bacon when his PA opened the door and announced my associate had arrived.  
I heard her before I saw her, her polite voice thanking the PA for holding the door, the unmistakable tap of metal heel caps hitting a stone floor  and I smelt the faintest hint of her perfume.  So I cleared my throat and started to say "This is my colleague and the team's architect, " but I made the fatal error of turning to look at her mid way through.

She had taken my advice. All of it. Even the things I had implied. Even things I didn't think I had implied.

Her hair was sleekly styled into a neat chignon. She was wearing a beautifully cut black skirt suit,  a creamy pale shirt buttoned to her supersternal notch and a pair of neat, three inch heeled black pumps. Her purse matched her shoes. Her purse matched her _briefcase_. She even had a pair of diamond studs gracing her earlobes. To say she had dressed the way I would if I was a woman sounds impossibly egocentric but I will stand by it to this day.

And the best part? The part where I all but lost the power of speech? I thought she was wearing soft grey nylons, so dark they were almost black, with the faintest hint of a sheen on them. Then I noticed the merest hint of a line under her skirt. Her _just above the knee, oh, my look at my legs Arthur_ _!_ , skirt. And two very distinct things clicked inside my brain: First, whatever they were they not nylon, but silk. (A few years of indulging in good fabric can teach you so many things.) Second of all, they were stockings. What I could see, the softest whisper of a shadow, visible only to man who's life has been the smallest detail, was the line of her garters underneath her skirt.

 Of course, Ariadne hadn't properly noticed my sudden attack of panting tongue, eyes boggling out of head -itis. She was shaking Gershardt's hand, smiling and _"Bonjour, monsieur. C'est un grand plaisir de vous rencontrer"_ \- ing, asking for a glass of water, mentioning her studies, generally being everything she needed to be, while I got a hard on so bad I was willing to swear that all the blood in my body had gone straight to my groin. When she sat down next to me and crossed her legs and I heard the dry whisper of the fabric stroking over itself there was no other thought in my head but her, naked save for those scraps of silk. When she turned to me and smiled, obviously expecting me to continue my patter, all I could hear was her whispering about how much she wanted me to take her, hard and fast and now.

I am not proud of what I did next.

~*~

I suddenly clapped my hand over my top pocket, in what I hoped was a fair imitation of feeling my cell phone vibrate. (Although with hindsight it might also have looked like I was having an unexpected heart attack.) Apologising profusely to our prospective client, I took it out,  pretended to examine it,  pretended to pick up a non existent call and pretended to speak to a non existent Dom. Given that my brain had given up being coherent on any subject other than Ariadne's legs by that point, it is a wonder that I managed to pretend that I was having a chat with a voice activated telephone system, let alone another human being. I'm still surprised every other word out of my mouth wasn't _fuck_.

Ariadne shot me an anxious look as I ahahed and ahummed for about a minute, then hung up with a snap.

"I'm sorry, Mr.Gershardt but I am afraid we'll have to cut our meeting today short. An urgent matter has arisen." _oh god, had it arisen_ , "I do hope that you'll understand that given the detailed and delicate nature of our work our entire team is needed when a difficulty arises. Should you chose to work with us the same dedication would, of course, be extended to you."

I stood up, followed after a beat by Ariadne, who was probably wondering what the hell had happened, and shook hands with the faintly bewildered man. "We will be in contact to arrange another time to discuss your needs, should you wish it. Good morning, sir."  I barely let her echo me; I put my hand firmly into the small of her back and all but pushed her across the floor and out of the door.

~*~  
   
We were barely out of his earshot when unsurprisingly she started muttering urgently.

"Arthur, what's happening? Is it Dom? Is it Gershardt? Talk to me, I need to understand what we're dealing with so we can start working on a fix. Arthur!"

I swear I would have picked her up, put her over my shoulder and just run had I not thought she might try and batter me with her briefcase. As it was I was not about to escalate my lie further with a bullshit answer and risk digging myself a deeper hole, but nor was I about to admit that I was three thoughts away from ruining a $4,000 suit, needing a post coital cigarette and probably getting arrested for indecent exposure in the middle of a hotel corridor. So I opted for striding along as fast as I could manage, silently wracking my brains for the numbers of the empty rooms on Gershardt's floor.

"In here, quickly."

Thanking various powers for the universal keycard and the computerisation of the entire world, I flung open the door of a suite, hustled her inside and threw the bolt home as if I was being chased by a SWAT team. It was only when I stopped that I realised how hard my heart was beating, how fast I was breathing and dear heaven, what I had just done. For a minute second I pressed my forehead to the cool wood in front of me, begging myself to be calm and not completely lose it. Or  rather lose it any more than I had.

"You're scaring the shit out of me. What's happening? Tell me right now!"

I managed to turn round to face her. No lying, I promised myself. I groped for my totem like a child reaching for a comfort blanket. Hoped that she and Dom wouldn't be collectively kicking me into next week for this.

"What are, " I croaked, then tried again, my voice still sounding impossibly rusty. "Ariadne...are you wearing garters?"

She gave me one of her patented looks. The one which quite clearly conveyed the idea that I had had my brain surgically removed and replaced with two scoops of raspberry sorbet.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Are you...?"

She stared at me incredulously and cut me off. "There is no emergency, is there?"

( _Other than the one in my hip pocket, you mean?_ )

"No."

"So you've brought us out of a meeting and into an empty hotel suite to discuss my hosiery?"

( _No, I brought you in here so I could rip everything off your body save your fucking_ glorious _hosiery and have you, over and over again, until every other man who dared to come within ten feet of you was nothing but a pale ghost in comparison to me and I could barely recall my name, let alone which planet I was on._ )

I nodded.

Her face, which had been a picture of disbelief, took on the faintest hint of a smile. Even so, she let out an exasperated sigh.

"I'm not sure if I should be flattered or outraged."

I took a deep breath. "Be flattered," I leaned forward and took her hand gently in mine. She offered no resistance when I pressed it against my cock, letting her feel me through a layer of soft woollen fabric. "Be very, very flattered." I whispered in to her ear.

When I moved back her pupils were so dilated her eyes were almost black.

"So...we've probably wrecked the Gershardt thing. We still have to explain to Dom. We could still go back and save it..." She trailed her fingers gently up my length, considering me it seemed, and I bit back a groan.

"So. Do you still want to know if I'm wearing garters?" Her voice was low and amused.

"No."

"No?"

"No." I smiled darkly at her, "I want you to strip. And show me."

~*~

She bit her lip, and the fear I had gone too far prickled on the back of my neck.  
"I've never...did you want me to dance while I do it or something?" Dear Lord, did I sound like I was Eames' long lost brother by asking her to do that? (Fantastic, now I was aroused and thinking about Eames in a pole dancing club, drinking a Kamikaze, eating peanuts and waving a handful of used fives, a sensation guaranteed to make me wince in all it's technicolour glory.)  
"No, nothing like that. I just want you to undress for me." Her face was still anxious.  
"What, like..." I smothered the question in a kiss and I felt her body soften against me, her hands clutching my jacket in a possessive grip.  
"How about I tell you what I want you to do?" I whispered against her mouth "Then we can't go wrong."

~

I sat down on the couch and crossed my legs.

"Leave your shoes by the door and come and stand in front of me." She pulled off each one and dropped them with a hollow thunk, then padded shyly across the suite until she was an arm's length away.

"First, take down your hair."  
"It has about a hundred hairpins in it..." she started to counter.  
"Take down your hair."  I reiterated slowly. She reached up and gently took hold of the smooth twist, yanked it to one side and a handful of pins clattered to the floor by her feet as it unfurled down her back.

"Start by taking off  your jacket."  Gratifyingly her fingers fumbled with the buttons; I obviously wasn't the only one struggling with my arousal by then. She dropped it carefully on the chair next to her.

"Shirt." She inhaled shakily, untucked it from her waistband then started to unpop each button. Buttons which were... on the wrong side?  
"That's not a woman's shirt, is it Ariadne?"  
"No. I... had one of yours altered." Fuck. _Garters and my shirt_. She had been walking around in _...my god man, breathe!_  
"Well, since it's mine I'd better have it back." It slipped from her shoulders in a rustle of cotton and landed, warm and perfumed in my lap.

"Bra."  
The garment was dark blue and trimmed with the merest amount of plain black lace. She unhooked it and laid it over her jacket. I allowed myself a moment to admire her topless, gazing at the soft flush on her cleavage and the rosy buds crowning the pale swell of each breast, while trying urgently not to notice that my mouth had gone dry.

"Skirt."  
The zipper sounded loud in the quiet, followed by the airy slither of the lining against her legs. She stepped one foot out, then the other, laying it across everything else before she straightened up, put her hands on her hips and I could finally see her hosiery. Her fucking glorious hosiery.

Oh god, this was better than my fantasy by about the power of a hundred.  
~*~

The stockings she was wearing ended in a plain band about two thirds of the way up her thighs, leaving a delicious looking gap of creamy skin between them and her dark blue panties. Her garters bisected the gap into the perfect space for my mouth or my fingers to explore an inch at a time were I so inclined. I could feel my totem pressing into my palm I was clutching it so tightly. She looked...wanton, as if she was challenging me with her soft smile and untamed locks, the dark blue fabric and black lace against her luminous skin. And slightly nervous, still.

"You are..." my voice seemed to come from a hundred miles away and another body, "...you're so...I mean I..."  
"Do you like it?"  
"Do I like it?" I dropped to my knees and cupped her ankles in my hands. The silk was warm as I smoothed over the curve of her calves, the soft creases of her knees and up the swell of her thighs. My fingers splayed over the fabric, seeking it's edges then with aching, agonising slowness, I let myself follow them round the tops of her legs. Her breath hitched when I finally touched her skin, drawing parallel lines alongside her garters with my fingertips. My mouth followed quickly behind, earning myself a moan of my name, painting tiny kisses where I had let my fingers linger. The universe had shrunk down to a few square inches of the most glorious skin I had ever had the pleasure of touching and I felt drunk on it; drunk on the softness, drunk on the scent of her arousal, drunk on the hold we had over each to bring us both to this moment and I am not sure I could have stopped had the room suddenly caught fire, been bombed or filled with my extended family.

I had worked my way up to squeezing her neat behind and putting open mouthed kisses over her still covered pussy when it dawned on me that I now had a rather more practical problem: How to get her panties off if they were inside her garters? Since I was not going to countenance the garters being removed at any point the choice was simple a) rip her panties off her- which only really works with stunt underwear favoured by strippers (dammit, don't think about Eames again) or very cheap, flimsy garments, which these obviously were not or b) cut them off her- which would require something to cut them with. She was all but grinding into my mouth by this point and my mental processes had dropped down to being so basic that I was almost beyond any more coherent thoughts than "Undo. Undo. Thrust."

"Ariadne," I managed to pant from between her thighs, "Ariadne!"  
She moaned something nonsensical. My body, which obviously wanted nothing to do with any sort of discussion, snuck two fingers past the edge of her underwear and slipped inside her, rendering my brain a blizzard of hotwettighthotwettight thoughts. My thumb, clearly acting under orders from my two happily engaged fingers, was about to slip in and start teasing her clit when my head cleared long enough to let me moan: "Panties. I have to get your panties off. Now. Damn it, Ariadne!"

And to remember I had a Swiss Army knife in my attaché bag.

"Stay there." I disengaged from her gloriously hot, liquid body and tipped out the bag I'd dropped on the coffee table. Pens, moleskine, mints, client file, all skittered away from my fingers. After about a hundred years I finally saw the bright red case peering back up at me from the table top; the sensation of relief was only matched by the sudden, brain fusing feeling of my belt being undone.

~*~

"Arthur," I heard her lust stained voice purr, "you're rather overdressed for this, don't you think?" Small, cool hands undid my fly. "And I need to return the attention you've shown me. It's only fair." They pulled down my underwear, freeing my cock so her hot breath was right on my skin. "Don't you think?" I dared to look down and there she was, on her knees before me, smiling like sin from under her dishevelled curls,huge brown eyes sparkling and me in her hands, just a breath away from her lust reddened mouth. "Well?" With the final l she touched the head of my cock with the tip of her tongue and drew it slowly upwards. "Mmm?"

She didn't wait for my response (thankfully ,since I had given up the English language by that point) and engulfed me in her mouth with the kind of eagerness only she could bring to the activity. Her tongue seemed to be all over my cock all at once; her hands were stroking and squeezing my aching balls while she hummed with what I hoped was pleasure, since that's how it felt to me. I let my hands twine into her hair and my mouth reel out a litany of nonsense, mostly pleading her to keep doing what she was doing. In fact I was about to beg her to stop, for fear she would send me over the edge before I had even got near her, when she released me into her hands again and whispered: "Look up. On the wall. Can you see?"

I opened my lust dazed eyes, not even realising I had closed them, and saw our room, twinned in the silver sheen of a mirror. A dark haired woman with warm toned skin kneeling on an oriental rug, naked except for the sharp, dark lines of her garters cutting across her bottom and the darkness of sheer fabric covering her feet. A dark haired man in a jacket, vest, shirt and tie, his naked lower body obscured by the kneeling woman and his face hot with arousal. One hand cupping her head. The length of her body against his legs, her face pressed to his thigh, so close her eyelashes were stroking his skin.

"Can you see us?" She mouthed against me. My reply was a strangled vowel.

"Watch me," she sighed. " **Watch us**."

In the mirror the woman began her ministrations again, her mouth working over the man who was me; it was Ariadne's mouth bringing me closer and closer to the edge, I was the man in the mirror moaning and growling _fuck_ and _Ariadne_ and _oh god, please_ while he groped at her curls. It was her body spread at my feet like a portrait of sex and desire, all pale curves and dark lines, teasing me into her until I would never want to be anywhere else. I was dislocating with pleasure, but I somehow managed to find a clear thought in amongst all the babble.

I couldn't let it end like this, even though I wanted to give in. I wanted her to be just as completely pleased and this was not the way to get it.

"Stop." I managed finally. "Ariadne, please." She peeked up at me, her hands still holding my aching cock. "I want you."  
"You have me." She pointed out with an angelic smile. Smartass.  
"No, I want to be inside you." Crap, I was overdressed. I managed to shed my jacket and begin on my vest.  
"You were." She pressed a kiss on my thigh. "You can be again in just a moment." _Yes, oh, please..._ I mean no, you double talking minx, no!  
"Don't be so obtuse." I threw my tie carelessly to one side, more through distraction than intention. "You know what I want."  
"I thought..." she tilted her head on one side and let her hair brush against me, "... you were going to tell me what you wanted me to do."

Fine. Two can play this game. I smiled back at her and started to unbutton my shirt.

"Get on the bed. Now."  
~*~

She shot me one last, huge eyed, dirty smiling look from where she was kneeling, and for a minute I thought she was going to ignore me in her superb, stubborn way. But she quietly and obediently stood and crossed the room, swinging her hips while my eyes glued themselves to the beautiful curve of her ass. Undressing, I was supposed to be undressing, dear god, but my hands stuck around my third button as she hopped up onto the bed and luxuriously stretched herself out.

"Now what would you like me to do?"

 _(Buttons, have to undo my buttons. And keep breathing, that's very important._ )

"Arthur?"

 _(Shoes before pants. Mental note to self: kill the man who invented shoe laces. And the man who invented socks._ )

She sighed and one hand trailed down, over her breasts, across her ribs, over her stomach, past her hip, following the line of her garter, lower and lower.

 _(And undershirts. Why the hell did I put on so many clothes this morning? Goddamnit, I am an idiot.._.) I yanked the last piece of cloth away from my body, almost yelled Finally! and took three of the fastest steps I had ever managed, ever, reaching the edge of the bed and catching her hand away from her centre.

"No starting without me." I managed to chide her before attacking her mouth with mine, my free hand latching on to her left breast, kneading at its softness before toying with the hard, cherry pink nipple. Her groans transmitted through our kiss and her body pressed up into my hand. I desperately wanted to put every inch of my skin in contact with hers, but so help me, I was too turned on by the scenario to finish it so soon. 

I was trailing kisses across her jaw, heading for her right earlobe (she loves having her earlobes nibbled and sucked. I'm planning to spend a day in the near future seeing if she can come through having them played with and nothing else. Or perhaps a week.) When she managed to moan "Can I have my hand back, please?"

Ah yes, the rogue hand. I lifted my head from her neck and brought her hand up to my face. "Look at me." Her eyes opened reluctantly. "Which fingers did you manage to touch yourself with?"  
She swallowed nervously, then said "My index, middle and ring fingers."  
"Hold them out."  
She shakily tucked her thumb and little finger into her palm.  
"Did you enjoy touching yourself while I watched you?"  
She nodded her head.  
"Yes or no, Ariadne."  
"Yes."  
"Did you want to tease me? Knowing I was already desperate to have you?"  
"Uhh...yes."  
"Do you know how much I want to please you?" Her eyes fluttered shut. "No. Look at me and tell me. Do you know how much I want to please you?"  
"N..n..no."  
"You don't?"  
I took the errant digits and slipped them into my mouth. I let my tongue lave it's way round each crease, each joint, searching for every trace of her taste that might be there, then pulled them as slowly as I could from between my lips, letting my teeth graze each tip gently as they left my mouth.  
"That's what I want to do to your fingers. Just think what I want to do to the rest of you. And that's how I feel about you _all the time_."

Her face was a perfect picture of aroused shock, but she barely gave me a second to enjoy it. Her arms wrapped round my shoulders, her mouth glued itself to mine and she pulled my very willing body down over hers.

" _God, Arthur_ ," she kept groaning, over and over, as her beautiful hands clutched my back, grabbed at my backside to drag me closer to her; her nails scratching up my ribs and over my nipples, again and again, while she let her mouth go to town on my neck and shoulders; her hips thrusting against me so urgently I could feel her wetness on my stomach and my cock grazing tantalisingly close to her pussy.  
Not that I was much more controlled, in all honesty. My vocabulary had been reduced to " _Ariadne, oh fuck, Ariadne_." I slipped two fingers inside her soft warmth in the hope it would placate her a little, but if anything her glorious, wonderful gyrations became even wilder at my touch. My other hand groped desperately at one of her achingly smooth stocking clad legs, dragging my fingers from the fabric to rubbing the margin of skin at the top over and over again; while my mouth took on her breasts in a rush of open mouthed kisses, suckling each nipple in turn until her groans switched to gasps. 

"Now, please, Arthur, _please._ "  
"Fuck, Ariadne. Mmm...one...last...thing." I managed to mumble between kisses.  
"What? Uhh...For God's sake, what?" I separated us, fighting the urge to just have her and be done with it, and fixed her with the same look I had given her when I cleaned her fingers. My voice seemed darker than I had ever heard it when I finally spoke.

"Ride me."

~*~

"Sit up at the top of the bed," she whispered, pushing me back and down into the mattress, twisting herself around me as I went so we were flipped over.  "Head on the pillows, OK?"  I scooted myself up and she crawled over me, brushing herself against my skin like a cat. Her hair trailed over my cock in an exquisite wave, followed by her cheek, then her tongue, the valley between her breasts and the smoothness of her stomach as she sat up, straddling my thighs.

"Do you know how much I want to please you?" Her voice was soft. Oh crap.  
"Mmmnnurrgh." I managed.  
"Yes or no, Arthur." The smartass was back, smile in force.  
"No." I bit out. This was it. Not death by an annoyed corporate bigwig or rival extractor. My girlfriend was literally going to make me have a sex induced heart failure. It took almost everything I had to not simply take her hips and sit her straight down on me.

"You don't, hmm?"  She took my erection in one soft, warm little hand and knelt over me so we were face to face. Then, very gently, she began to slide herself back and forth over the head of my cock. She ran me from her clit, downwards, through the tantalising little dip that I wanted to push into so desperately, back almost to the edge of her perineum, then achingly slowly back again, over and over as if she had the rest of her life to do this to me.  
"I want you like this. I have wanted you like this ever since we first dreamt together. Ever since then, I have wanted to please you. All of you." Her mouth descended on mine in a searing kiss. "And now I can." She whispered.

" _Please, Ariadne.._ "

She guided me down again, over her slick skin. "And I want to do it all the time." I felt myself dip into her, only this time I was sinking in to her, and she was soft, warm and tight around me. "All the time." Her hips met mine and she sat up, fully astride me, then began to rock herself into me almost as agonisingly slowly as before. My hands clasped her thighs, feeling the garter belt and the slip of the silk as she moved.

"This is what I want to do to you when we're making love,"  she purred, "imagine how I feel when we're working together. Imagine how much I want to please you, all of you, all the time." Her tempo began to increase and my body started to thrust upwards in response. "Do you know that?"

( _Ohgodohpleaseohgodohpleaseohariadneohariadneohariadneohariadneohariadneohariadneohariadne_ )

"Do you?" She broke off in a heart rending little moan, "Arthur?" She was rising and falling ever faster, her hair sticking to her sweat heated skin and her breasts moving in a incredible accompaniment to her hips. I was bucking against her by now and, when I dared to look down to where our bodies were joined, seeing her engulf me as I rose up to meet her nearly made my eyes roll back in my head.

"Oh yes...yes, Ariadne. Don't...stop!"  
At my encouragement she growled, planted her hands on my chest and started to thrust herself against me as if she were literally trying to fuck my brains out.

"Tell me you know how much I want to please you." She panted. My hips slammed up, matching her stroke for stroke.

"I do...I know.. how much.. you... _oh, fuck!_... want...to please me."

"And do I?" One of her hands strayed down to where we were joined, feeling the union she couldn't see and moaning aloud when she did.

"Yes! _Oh god..._ yes you do, you do, all the time, _don't stop_!"  
She bit her lip, and I felt her breathing start to come in gasps. Two of her fingers were on her clit and she was franticly drawing tiny circles as her thrusts got more erratic. ( _Can't come until she does, can't come until she does, can't come until she does, **oh god** **!** fungiEames'dirtysockstaxforecasting_ _waterpolo_ _stringtheory_ )

"Oh Arthur, _oh my_ I'm... _god_ , Arthur!" She suddenly ground down on to me, arching her head back and I felt her body clutch me tightly, sending my last scrap of self control to the wind. I thrust once, twice then my entire nervous system seemed to overload, stretching me taut, sending me up into her, white light burning behind my eyes and her name on my lips.

~*~

"What are we going to tell Dom?"

We were curled up in the bed a little while later. Ariadne was spread over my torso and I was enjoying the kind of afterglow that could power a small city, while idly drawing circles on her back with my thumbs.

"Hmm? Oh, Dom. I'll think of something."  
"I must have you distracted. Normally you'd have three solutions on hand before I even asked." She lifted her head and kissed me lazily. "Could this be the end of your great reputation?"

"No." I kissed her in return. "I was otherwise occupied with something that required all my attention to detail and focus. How did I do?"

"Your reputation is safe. And extremely well justified."

"Wonderful. Now," I rolled us both over so she was trapped underneath me and gave her my most winning smile, "Room service? Or do I need another professional review?"

~*~  
   
"Well, if it isn't the two babes in the wood." Eames voice greeted us the next morning as we arrived for work. "We were expecting you back yesterday. And then Gershardt called and, well, we had no idea what to think."

My heart sank. I was going to have to tell Cobb everything, from the hurried exit to the sticky end, most likely with Eames outside the door hanging on every dirty word. Ariadne took my hand and squeezed it, giving me a small smile. She had point blank refused to let me face the music alone, despite everything I said, and was obviously making an early start.

"Was he that pissed off?"

"Pissed off? Good Lord...," But the, doubtless lovingly prepared, description of just how badly I had fucked up was interrupted by the voice of our extractor in chief.

"Arthur! Ariadne. Can we talk for a second?"

We trailed meekly behind him into the space he used for his office. As soon as the door was shut I jumped straight in, thinking it was better over and done with, like ripping off a band aid. "Cobb, look. I'm sorry about Gershardt. It was my fault, I lost my head and I wasn't thinking clearly. I'll go back and I'll talk to him today, I'll apologise, then we might still get him to work with us."

"Might still?" He folded his arms and frowned at me. "He called me yesterday afternoon wanting to discuss terms and fees. I wanted to congratulate you both. It wasn't an easy pitch but you seem to have managed it. Although by the way you're acting, I'm guessing you weren't expecting me to say that." He looked at Ariadne, who in turn was looking at me.

"No, well, it was a  tough meeting. We...had to be pretty convincing."  She glanced over at Dom quickly.

"I see. Well, I was going to ask where you got to yesterday, but since you brought us a new client and a difficult one at that, I'm guessing you needed some time out, yes?"

Ariadne nodded and I managed to mumble an affirmative noise. "OK, well. I think we can leave it there."

As we were turning to go, Cobb said jovially, "You know what he said impressed him most? The fact that we were so dedicated we would drop everything, even wooing a new client, to give our time to the current one. Then he asked me if we'd managed to solve the problem we were having. It was quite touching how concerned he was."

My heart sank. Here it comes, sacked by my best friend for wanting to get my leg over with my girl and second best friend. "I can explain..." I started

"Don't. I don't need to know, and neither does Eames out there. Just, " he shook his head, "next time? Warn me. It makes me so much more convincing when I lie. Now, go and do something productive."

~*~

Ariadne was still holding my hand as we crossed the warehouse. Ordinarily it might have bothered me, but today it was not only comforting but comfortable.

"You know," she smiled, "I was thinking. I really should start dressing properly for this job."

"How would that be then?"

"You know. Suit, blouse, heels..." She tailed off and raised her eyebrows cheekily.

"I think that," I stole a peck on her lips, "sounds like an excellent idea."

~*~*~  


**Author's Note:**

> A/N's: Hundreds! Bear with me.  
> Eames' name (Thomas Leonard) is a reference to both Tom Hardy and Joseph (Leonard) Gordon-Levitt.  
> The woman's body/amusement park image I first found in an adorable M*A*S*H* fanfic called _Missing Out_. It in turn is originally from the comedian Ron White. ****
> 
>  ****Arthur's 'women are beautiful' speech is inspired mostly by _Coupling,_ the sitcom written by Steven Moffatt _(_ now writer/EP of _Doctor Who.)_ Steve, the male lead, is often granted wonderful monologues on how mysterious, unfathomable, frustrating and wonderful women are to men.
> 
> Neither _Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus_ or _Chicken Soup for The Soul_ were written by me. I am using their names without permission, but I'm not making any money from it so feel free to ignore them. The reference, that is. The books? I'll let you decide...
> 
> The name Gershardt (pronounced Ger-shar-dt) is Dutch, but this character is in no way related to the jeweller of the same name.
> 
> Arthur's favourite artist being Francis Bacon can be seen in the film- when Mal and Cobb are talking in Saito's dream house. Cobb replies it's actually Saito's taste, but it was just too good a snippet to miss.
> 
> "You were three thoughts away from a post coital cigarette!" is a line from _Fraiser_ (addressed to Niles who is mooning after Daphne, naturally.)
> 
> Eames eating peanuts and drinking a kamikaze comes from two places; a hilarious discussion of what Eames' totem is (by popular consensus, a poker chip) mentioning that he's eating peanuts in the bar scene with Cobb as a tribute to his dad/granddad/mentor who's nickname was Peanuts; In _The Secret History_ kamikazes are Judy Poovey's favourite drink, and are quite often behind some of her worst exploits. Richard Papen describes then as being lurid blue and extremely alcoholic. It simply fitted really nicely with the horror Arthur's brain has at that second.
> 
> Women's shirts button on the left and men's on the right. It apparently rises out of the fact women would often be dressed by others and men by themselves, particularly in military settings. And you just know Arthur would notice something like that.
> 
> Finally, the title is a really lame pun: There is an expression in the UK referring to things that perk you up as "putting lead in your pencil" (give you a hard on, basically.) Graphite is used instead of lead these days being safer; it's also a very dark shade of grey and the colour I had in mind for Ariadne's stockings.  
>  _  
> _


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